Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

Hey everybody

So after looking in the [Priest] Talent Build Discussion tread, I failed to find any specs looking like this. Then I tried Searching and I failed miserable at that. So sorry if I just missed this spec somewhere in here.

Empowered Renew - I usually don't heal much with Renew, so I shouldn't miss a lot from that one.
Empowered Healing - I read that with 2.1k Spellpower, I'd lose ~ 1000 on a Greater Heal and ~ 500 on a Flash Heal. Doesn't seem like much, but it's worth something I guess.
Serendipity - Well, I'm not a big fan of this spell, but I guess it come in handy sometimes.
Test of Faith - Great Talent sometimes, comes in handy like Serendipity.
Divine Providence - Awesome Talent, no doubt about it, I like it very much myself.
Guardian Spirit - Like Divine Providence, an Awesome talent, will be missed.

After summing up what I lost and gained, I think it would be a pretty pay-off, where Divine Providence & Guardian Spirit will be missed, but the Intellect, Spirit, Haste & Cheaper Instant spells outweigh it in a manner.

Well, that was about it. It would be nice if someone could point out any flaws that might exist and point out why a deep Holy would perform better than this.

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

I was thinking about something like that, I like very much your build and I think it could be very useful.

Just a couple of changes:

- Drop Blessed Resilence to get Serendepity: +3% healing isn't so much, but a GH cast in 1.5 seg could be great
- Drop Lightwell to get Empowered Renew: just one point to this talent to proc Holy Concentration, but this is just my opinion because I use Renew a lot (maybe I should reroll to a druid :P).

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

I see your point around Blessed Resilience to get Serendepity, I might aswell do that

About Lightwell, I think it's a great spell, if used correctly. I don't know the modifier around Spellpower for that one, but assuming a charge heals 6000, it will, if used properly, heal 60000 for 0 Mana Cost. Then there's 30% Health lost cancels effect, yes. But if you look at Sapphiron, there is constant Raid Damage. When raid goes behind an Ice Block, I throw it, 10 players click it, and it heals full due to not standing in Blizzard and only taking the ticking damage. That's a lot of healing with nearly no effort

It's very situational, yes, but I like it. (And I don't use Renew that much )

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

Hello ^^
I can be honest I didnt log on my priest since I hit 80 no gear no archiv nothing I got full pvp gear (Hatefull) and I quite it
but with this talent I guess Im going back becuase of this talent as u know pvp gear lack on mane and mp5 but I think with this it might help alot

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

Hybrid specs worked fairly well at the end of TBC but they're not worth it now. Guardian Spirit saves lives, especially with the glyph when you can use it without a second thought if someone's about to die. The added talents you might get in exchange will up your throughput & regen and might make you look better on meters but they will not keep people alive as well as GS does, which is what healers are there for.

Even if you disagree with me on that point, Divine Providence is +10% to your top healing spells used [CoH/PoH/PoM/DH/HN/BH] as well as 3 seconds off the cd of PoM. I would never give GS and/or DP up for a holy spec.

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

I think the question you should ask yourself first is... what do you plan on doing with your toon? Heroics? 10Naxx? 25Naxx? 10/25Sarth/Maly/VoA(E)? If that is the case, then your spec will be just fine.

If you plan to raid ulduar10/25, however, I would chose either deep Disco or Holy. At higher levels Emp Renew crits for 2.5k and ticks for the same. That means instant crit + 1 tick = one non-crit FH. Not to mention a 50% chance on crit to pop SoL.

Serendipity is awesome for massive raid wide abilities that either are not on a timer or include an interupt. Faster the raid is healed up the better.

Test of Faith scales like a beast. As a raid healer, having that extra oomph on a low health dps/healer is huge.

Divine Providence/GS, as you pointed out, are the sexy.

Basically, your spec design sacrifices spec defining abilities for raw statistics. While this could be interesting at low gear levels, essentially you've cripped yourself in relation to both specs.

Your shields are paltry w/o BT. If you have a Disco priest in the raid w/ you, he will not be pleased.

+15%INT/+6%SPI/+6%Haste are all stat multipliers. There is merit here, but at the end of the day, they are just multipliers.

MA: If your not casting renew, the only IC spells that are remotely cast frequently enough for this to matter is CoH & ProM (Low cost to begin with), and to a lesser extent AD & Dispel.

Of course, if it works for you great. For cutting edge, however, I would go deep in one or the other.

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

Just in here to basically agree with Spiritus that I think hybrid specs really aren't worth it except for possibly at really low gear levels. This spec will probably have some killer regen, especially if you were to, say, pick up a point in Empowered Renew and look for a way to get Healing Prayers, but you're trading an enormous amount of throughput and, to be honest, what good is haven't virtually infinite mana if you can't cast fast enough heal hard enough to save lives.

Also as Spiritus said, multipliers can be deceptive. Enlightenment is an example of this. Haste and Spirit are both awesome stats for Holy, but compare how else you could spend those 3 points. Those same 3 points in Empowered Healing would mean 12% more SP for Flash Heal or 24% more SP for Greater Heal or, even better, if they were in Divine Providence (assuming you could reach that talent), that's 6% on all of your multi-target heals. Similarly, the 6% Haste looks nice, but the effective Haste benefit of Serendipity is just sick for increasing raw throughput or burst healing.

The points spent in IPWS look great, but without Borrowed Time, you lose a lot of the throughput potential of them (from more absorption and the Haste), and without Rapture, it's not going to be as mana efficient as you'd think. The 15% extra absorption alone probably isn't going to save many lives, and Soul Warding may remove the GCD, but if you're going to be using PWS that much, you're clearly better off going deep Discipline. So compare the extra ability to save lives with those 4 points against 4 points that could be spent in, say Guardian Spirit and either Empowered Renew or Test of Faith.

So, by all means, experiment with it, but I just think you'll ultimately find the trade-offs aren't worth it.

Re: Holy / Discipline PvE Spec

Just to add a little bit more to this, not to beat a dead horse or anything.

I was recently pugging a 25-man Naxx and of the healers there was another priest, praying it wasnt a disc priest. I had to inspect him. He was a 30/41 or something similar to it. I honestly laughed a little bit. I didnt say anything to him, I dont care what other people do with their specs.

At first, on the easier fights (spider/plague wings) he did excellent. But once we got to the more complicated fights (not really complicated.. but for some of these people...) his healing was REALLY lackluster. Now being a disc priest myself, I know not to trust the meters very often. But he was almost ALWAYS below even me. And any other spec of healer usually stomps all over me.

It couldn't be because he was shielding, I have recount guessed absorbs and he hardly ever threw a shield. (and wasnt deep enough to get Divine Aegis). Now this might not be the case for all healers who spec this way, and this particular player could have just been bad himself. But if I was to run again, I wouldnt trust him really.